Monday, 6th October 2025
It was a good turnout for the guided fungi walk in the woods with Matt, one of FCWF ecologists, and Bren.
There are many different species of fungi in Childwall Woods, and Matt was there to tell us about many of them as they appeared along the walk.
We found many familiar wood rot fungi of the Ganoderma family as we went, slowly decomposing trees. both dead and alive. Shedding their chocolate spores all around. Their underside is velvety white, and the tiny pores allow the spores to drop.
The woody brackets of the Ganoderma family
The ridges on the brackets show how many years they have been there.
There were some beautiful Porcelaine mushrooms on the rotting wood, looking stunning but doing the essential job of returning the rotting wood to the soil.
Wide gills on the underside of the Porcelain mushroom
Porcelain mushrooms. Oudemansiella mucida
The fallen trees and branches gave us the best gifts, such as the Bootlace Rhizomes of the Honey Fungus, a pathogenic fungus that will send its black stems throughout the tree, pushing the bark from the sapwood and killing the tree. It devours dead wood too and produces lovely, honey-brown fruiting bodies. Mushrooms.
Honey fungus Bootlace Rhizomes
Honey fungus fruiting body
There were many of our regular fungi, such as the bright orange Sulphur tufts and Wood tufts, Purple Jelly disc and wood warts, but there were some interesting new visitors too. Such as the tall, slim Pipe Club fungi
Pipe club fungus
Fragile and inconspicuous, but doing an essential job of breaking down the leaf litter and returning its nutrients to the soil.
It was also the first time we had spotted Tawny funnel cap fungi
Young Tawny funnel caps
Living in the humus-rich soil of the woodland floor, it sends out its fruiting funnels in hundreds. sometimes in fairy rings.
Childwall Woods gives us a wonderful show of fungi each autumn and you dont need a guide to show you around.
Here are some of the other delights you may come across
Puff balls
Oyster Mushrooms
Sulphur tufts
Jelly rot breaking down a stump
The walk ended as the light started to fade, but the fungi are still there for the sharp-eyed walker.
How many do you think you will find?
B.Cameron
Trustees present
M Jones
P Johnson
A Scott
B Cameron Photographs are the author’s own.